From A Purely Musical Stand Point, I Think The Ramones Are....

Punk rock was never about being particularly musical. It was about an attitude and rejection of the music culture that had dominated the scene. It was simply the anti disco and beatlemania. And later on just anti pop in general. It's just like 3 chords (I think) repeating in a hypnotizing way. The lyrics and roughness of the music just relate very well to rebellious teenagers. I know that it worked for me.

The Ramones rule. How can you not like songs like Havana Affair?
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The whole point of The Ramones is that they aren't that great musically.

That being said, I'm not too them either. I much prefer The Clash, X, Wipers, Dead Boys, etc etc And of course 80s hardcore stuff.

The Ramones were also in the movie Rock and Roll High School. What a joke.

Funny movie though.

rock n roll high school was frickin awesome

blitzkrieg bop

now i wanna sniff some glue


this shite blew my mind when I had a friend give me a ramones tape in middle school in the late 80s.

The Ramones' importance is not so much musical as attitudinal (did I just make that word up?). They openly rebelled against the pompously bombastic stadium rock of the 1970s, and sought to bring the music back to its street roots. This attitude would become the foundation of an entire movement, with the English characteristically linking it to politics.

Punk is a limited genre, commercially as well as emotionally, and both the Ramones and The Clash attempted to expand beyond it in both senses at about the same. For the most part The Clash succeeded, The Ramones did not. Perhaps because they were in a sense a gimmick act -- a "serious parody" of a 1966 garage band. In some ways they were as much of a put-on as their contemporaries Kiss.

I like a lot of the Ramones early stuff. But it has to be heard in context to understand its ultimate significance.

The Ramones are essentially the dry run for the Sex Pistols. Even put together by a music manager and put image first. Unlike the Pistols, they could actually play and had some terrific pop hooks. Really, that was their appeal in the original NYC punk scene, which tended to be dominated by artier bands like Television or the Talking Heads. The Ramones wrote 2 minute punk pop songs.

They were the Green Day of 1977.

I love the Ramones. Great fun, and they are the closest to a garage band. The further you get from garage rock, the less likely I am to like your band.